


Circuits

by Saucery



Series: Hartwin Stories [12]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Androids, Computer Programming, Conditioning, Consent Issues, Cop Fetish, Crime Fighting, Crime Scenes, Detectives, Devotion, Drama, Duty, Emotions, Free Will, Gay Robots, Identity Issues, Imprinting, Investigations, Loyalty, M/M, Machines, Mission Fic, Partnership, Philosophy, Police, Possessive Behavior, Protectiveness, Pseudoscience, Robot Feels, Robot Kink, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Robotics, Robots, Romance, Science Fiction, Self-Discovery, Stalking, Strength Kink, Surveillance, Technological Kink, Technology, Three Laws of Robotics, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:49:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3767020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is an android. Eggsy challenges his programming.</p><p>Or, Eggsy is a cop with a fondness for danger. Harry is his robot partner, desperately keeping his insufferable human alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circuits

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by the wonderful—and unfortunately canceled—television show, _Almost Human_. While the story isn’t a crossover or a fusion, I’ve borrowed several concepts from the show and from Asimov in general.

* * *

 

Eggsy wasn’t exactly determined to loathe his robot partner, but he _was_ determined to ditch that joke of a “partner,” as soon as possible. He wasn’t a mech-hater, but he didn’t think mechs belonged in law enforcement. The only good coppers were those with consciences, those with free will. What was stopping a reprogrammed bot from taking down headquarters from within?

Not that Eggsy was paranoid, or anything.

“Detective Unwin,” said Digby, their brand new liaison with GovTech, as a tall, bespectacled man in a suit stood next to him. The man had an unnerving stillness, an unnatural serenity, that gave him away as a bot. “This is your Kingsman unit. It’s a Galahad. Programmed in martial arts, bomb disposal, undercover work and… etiquette, whatever that means.”

“Good morning,” said the robot, smiling so warmly that Eggsy was kind of creeped out by it. “My name is Harry. Harry Hart.”

Eggsy frowned. “Isn’t your name Galahad?”

“That is merely my model assignation. I accorded myself a more relatable name, in order to better establish rapport with human beings.”

“So you manipulate people into trusting you.”

Harry tilted his head. “Is that not an eminently human trait?”

Great. The robot was a smartarse. And he was annoyingly handsome. Were these mechs as useful as they were pretty, or were they just Ken dolls with firepower? “When you say model, do you mean there’re many bots out there with the same face as yours?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that freak you out?” Eggsy snorted. “What am I saying? You can’t be freaked out.”

“Contrary to appearances, I have experienced the odd existential crisis.”

“Oi, Digs,” Eggsy said to Digby, “are they giving me a malfunctioning bot? ’Cause I’m sure these things aren’t supposed to have crises of faith.”

“An existential crisis is not, necessarily, a crisis of faith,” Harry said, “and I am not a ‘thing,’ but a person. A sentient entity.”

Digby shuffled nervously. “Look,” he said to Eggsy, “I’ve been made our liaison, because the government decided to pass that daft law about giving each human cop a robo-buddy, but I haven’t done all my reading, yet. I don’t want to say something wrong. Maybe you should check in with the lab bot; it’s a Merlin, and it’s supposed to know everything.”

“Merlin,” said Harry, brightening a bit too quickly for it to be natural. “If you have a Merlin, I would very much enjoy meeting him.”

“What, are your models best mates?” Eggsy asked. “Do you weave each other flower crowns?”

“Merlin is nigh-omniscient, has every corner of London under constant surveillance, and is an extremely valuable member of any crime-fighting team. He is an intelligence agent that does not have to be out in the field to gather intelligence, because he is connected to every CCTV network and national satellite there is.”

“Sounds bloody terrifying,” Eggsy muttered. Was it wise to give a hackable bot access to the country’s infrastructure, and to private citizens’ lives? This was worse than Big Brother; this was Big Bot.

“Precisely,” Harry said, like being terrifying was an asset. Then again, a mech with zero emotions wouldn’t be able to tell good feelings from bad feelings, would it?

“Ahem,” said Digby, inching toward the door to Arthur’s office. “I’ll update the boss, Eggsy, and I’ll email you your bot’s paperwork. Fill it out by sundown, would you? I have GovTech breathing down my neck.”

“He has a peculiar habit of talking over me,” Harry observed, once Digby had fled. “It is almost as though I do not exist.”

“You don’t,” said Eggsy, peevishly. “Not really. Listen, I don’t give a shite about the rules. Not unless they make sense to me, and this one doesn’t. I don’t need a bot tagging along like an overgrown Pinocchio. You can stay here and do my paperwork for me, and I’ll go out and—”

“No,” said Harry, his usually carefully-modulated voice hardening. “I apologize for interrupting you—it wasn’t very polite of me—but I must impress upon you that my sole purpose is to protect my partner, providing cover against bullets that would pierce your vulnerable flesh, and assisting in high-risk situations that would endanger your well-being.”

“Basically, you’re a glorified nursemaid.”

“I am your guard, your assistant and your friend.” Harry’s eyebrow rose a sardonic, calculated centimeter. “And, yes, your nursemaid.”

“What if I leave without you?”

“Then I will follow you. Given that I have already committed to memory your body’s measurements and specifications—”

“Specifications? I’m not a robot!”

“—I can locate you without any difficulty, anywhere in the city. I will find you, and I will protect you.”

It was more of a threat than a reassurance. “I have a government-sanctioned android stalker. Joy.” Eggsy huffed, and tried to slip past Harry, only to find his wrist wrapped in a sudden, iron-hard grip. He jolted to a halt, startled by how _hot_ that grip was, not cold, at all. It was just like the base of a laptop that got overheated. Must be all that active computation.

“You must understand,” Harry said, calmly, and for a moment, there was a glimmer of red circuitry in his mechanized eyes, transforming them from something almost-human to something blank, brutal and thoughtless. It was as though Harry’s mask had slipped, to reveal who he was, underneath. Or _what_ he was. “You cannot escape me.”

Sodding hell. It dawned on Eggsy, with a slow, growing horror, that this robot had imprinted on him. “That’s… your Prime Directive, isn’t it? Protecting me?”

Harry blinked down at his hand, as if surprised to find it detaining a policeman rather than a criminal, and visibly focused on relaxing his fingers, just enough for Eggsy to pull free. Eggsy had bruised, a little, and far from expressing regret for the bruise, Harry’s gaze fixated on it, unerring and unwavering. His pupils dilated—not smoothly, like biological pupils, but in jarring increments, like the aperture of a camera, mid-snap. Was the bastard taking _photos_ of it? “Indeed.”

“What’ll you do to anyone who harms me?”

“I will destroy them,” Harry said, just as calmly as his previous statement, and Eggsy realized that it _was_ a statement. A statement of fact. Nothing less, nothing more.

“Doesn’t the [First Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics) forbid you from harming organics?”

“The Kingsmen are not held to that law, if it violates public safety or the safety of our partners.”

“Blimey. And intimidating me doesn’t count as harming me? Aren’t _you_ harming me?”

“You are not frightened of me,” Harry said, “and while your heartbeat has accelerated since I touched you, the levels of adrenaline in your blood do not indicate terror, nor does the inactivity of your sweat glands. I have not intimidated you.”

Eggsy wondered if having a walking, talking X-ray machine would be detrimental to his sanity, or just to his temper. “For someone who’s supposed to ‘establish rapport,’ you’re very, very bad at making people feel comfortable.”

“I am sorry if I have discomfited you. I was activated two months ago, and spent those months in simulated training. I have not had sufficient real-world experience to fine-tune my responses. Needless to say, I will improve with each passing day, and accompanying you on cases will do much to educate me. Manners maketh man,” Harry said, with the air of a child repeating an oft-taught lesson, “and I will endeavor to perfect my manners, such that they are both appropriate to our duties, and pleasant to you.”

“Thanks for trying,” Eggsy said, drily, and pocketed his badge. “Let’s go and see this Merlin bloke, then. I’m not taking you outside until I’ve been told absolutely everything about you, including how to deactivate you if I have to.”

“Deactivation is not recommended unless the robot is a berserker,” Harry said. “A simple reset will suffice.”

Deactivation was tantamount to death, for bots, so it was understandable that Harry was unwilling to volunteer that information. “Yeah? Well, your tendency to use force to make your point spells potential berserker, to me.”

“I can tell you how to deactivate me,” Harry said, surprising Eggsy. “It is not deactivation I am opposed to,” Harry explained, patiently, “but leaving you undefended in my absence, until another model is built and trained to replace me. Thus, until I have proved my worth to you, and am more confident of your not deactivating me as a result of anti-mech prejudice, I will withhold my deactivation code from you.” Harry’s eyes were brown again, and deceptively sincere, as if the creature were capable of sincerity. “I ask that you trust me to tell you my deactivation code, eventually, instead of obtaining it from Merlin.”

“How eventually is eventually? I can’t afford to wait too long. What if you go bonkers before that?”

“If you cease attempting to abandon me, I will not go ‘bonkers.’”

“So you _could_ go bonkers.”

“It is a theoretical possibility, the probability of which drops substantially if you allow me to remain within physical reach of you when in a potentially dangerous environment.”

“The entire fucking planet qualifies as a potentially dangerous environment.”

“What an extraordinary coincidence,” said Harry, blandly, before extending his arm, in a gentlemanly fashion, in the direction of the lab. “Shall we?”

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!


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